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Thursday, March 6, 2014

Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader"s Day

A South African boy had the night of his life after running onto the pitch at the end of a friendly match against Brazil in Soweto.

Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader

After the final whistle had blown in Brazil’s 5-0 victory over South Africa at Soccer City the boy ran towards superstar forward Neymar.

The little boy runs onto the pitch Pic: BT Sport

Security staff at first attempted to usher the boy, dressed in a Springboks rugby union shirt, away .

Security begins to remove the little boy Pic: BT Sport

But when he was spotted by the 22-year-old Barcelona player – who had just scored a hat-trick to send South African fans home disappointed – ran over and scooped up the boy in his arms.

Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader

Fellow teammates followed, all smiling broadly at the young boy’s delight.

Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader

He was hoisted in the air by the players and then given his own photo opportunity.

Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader Pic: BT Sport

Brazil and Chelsea defender David Luiz pulled his own phone out as Neymar and the little boy posed.

Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader

The result was the picture of the match – and a perfect ending for one little boy.

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Brazil Stars Make Child Pitch Invader"s Day

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Obama buys time, makes his Syria pitch

President Barack Obama addresses the nation in a live televised speech from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013. President Obama blended the threat of military action with the hope of a diplomatic solution as he works to strip Syria of its chemical weapons. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

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WASHINGTON (AP) â€” On this night, President Barack Obama looked like a man who had escaped imminent defeat.

The Obama who made the case for military action in Syria on Tuesday night appeared more confident, more assured, perhaps even more relieved than the president who confronted the press corps twice during last week’s trip to Stockholm, Sweden, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Then Obama was defensive, arguing that the world, not he, had set a red line against Syria’s use of nuclear weapons and maintaining it was not his credibility that was at stake if the U.S. did not respond to the breach of that red line.

Last week, when he scheduled Tuesday’s national address, few aides believed it would be the pivotal moment they needed to change public opinion and prompt Congress to grant him authority to use military force against Syria. Americans were weary of war and suspicious of any reason to take up arms once again in a faraway land.

On Tuesday, Obama still made a case for striking at the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, invoking the image of hundreds gassed by chemical weapons on Aug. 21 in the outskirts of Damascus and the anguish of a father “clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk.” Obama still laid the blame on Assad, making the case he has been making for two weeks that the regime was responsible for launching sarin gas that killed more than 1,400, including more than 400 children.

Assad has blamed the attack on opposition forces and struck a confrontational pose against the United States.

But the tenuous diplomatic path that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have opened to secure Syria’s chemical weapons bought time and eased the pressure on both Congress and Obama to act.

“It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments,” Obama said Tuesday night. “But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies. I have therefore asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path.”

This was only Obama’s sixth address to the nation from the White House. They are reserved for momentous events â€” the death of Osama bin laden, the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan. The elegant setting and the deliberate presidential walk down the red-carpeted hallway are designed to convey authority and soberness.

Instead of being quizzed as he was in news conferences last week on what he would do if Congress failed to grant him authority, or on whether his political standing was on the line, Obama on Tuesday had the lectern and the trappings of office all to himself. Earlier in the day, he had spent 2Â½ hours on Capitol Hill in respectful meetings with Senate Democrats and then Senate Republicans, answering questions and making his case.

Obama does not do self-doubt in public. But when it comes to Syria, he has walked a fine line between agility and vacillation. On Tuesday the president sought to address questions about the mission directly, giving voice to those members of the public who have written to him and challenged the need to intervene.

“One man wrote to me that we are still recovering from our involvement in Iraq. A veteran put it more bluntly: This nation is sick and tired of war,” Obama said. “My answer is simple. I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad’s capabilities.”

It may not have swayed minds. But a speech that was supposed to be his final appeal may now be only the beginning.

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Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn

Associated Press

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Obama buys time, makes his Syria pitch

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Obama heads to Phoenix to pitch mortgage reform

President Barack Obama waves to the media as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington after returning on Marine One from Camp David, Md., where he spent his birthday Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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WASHINGTON (AP) â€” President Barack Obama is proposing to overhaul the nation’s mortgage finance system, including shutting down government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And he has some bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.

Obama was to outline his proposals Tuesday at a construction company in Phoenix, once the epicenter of the housing crisis following the 2008 economic collapse. The housing market in the region, as in much of the country, has rebounded in recent months, buoyed in part by low interest rates.

The president’s trip marks the latest stop on his summertime economic tour aimed at refocusing his agenda on middle-class Americans still struggling to recover from the recession. The collapse of the housing market in particular had a dramatic impact on people’s lives and the economic viability of communities nationwide.

“So many Americans across the country view their own economic and financial circumstances through their homes and whether they own a home, whether their home is underwater, whether they feel like they have equity in their homes,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.

Senior administration officials said Obama would focus in Phoenix on shifting more of the burden for supporting the nation’s massive mortgage market to the private sector. A centerpiece of that effort is winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance operations that received a $ 187 billion taxpayer-funded bailout in 2008.

The White House has previously lauded efforts to achieve that goal spearheaded by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. While Obama will outline his own proposals Tuesday, his plans are largely in line with the bipartisan Senate overhaul.

Obama’s plan would phase out Fannie and Freddie, replacing them with a system that relies on the private sector to buy mortgages from lenders. Officials said the government would only step in to pay out mortgage guarantees after private capital has been exhausted and said private capital would bear the substantial majority of any losses.

Obama’s advisers did not outline a specific timeframe for winding down Fannie and Freddie. The Corker-Warner legislation would shutter the operations within five years.

Fannie and Freddie don’t make loans directly, but buy mortgages from lenders, package them as bonds, guarantee them against default and sell them to investors. The enterprises currently own or guarantee half of all U.S. mortgages and back nearly 90 percent of new ones.

Against the backdrop of Phoenix’s reinvigorated housing market, Obama will also tout refinancing proposals that gained little traction on Capitol Hill when he first unveiled them last year. Among his proposals is a call for expanding refinancing eligibility for homeowners who do not have government-backed mortgages.

The president will also look to link his housing proposals to immigration reform, his top second-term legislative priority. Officials said he will argue that legal immigration can stimulate the housing market. According to the administration, immigrants accounted for 40 percent of new homeowners nationwide between 2000 and 2010.

The officials insisted on anonymity in order to preview the president’s remarks ahead of his trip.

The nationwide housing recovery has been providing critical support to the economy at a time when manufacturing and business investment have stagnated. Steady job growth and low mortgage rates in the past year have also fueled more home sales. The increased demand, along with a tight supply of homes for sale, has pushed home prices higher. That’s encouraged builders to start more homes and create more construction jobs.

The recovery in Phoenix is emblematic of the larger improvements happening in many parts of the country.

Just two years ago, the region was in the throes of the worst housing collapse in the country, with prices down nearly 60 percent from their June 2006 peak and banks foreclosing on 70,000 homeowners a year. While the current median home price remains below peak, the levels have risen 66 percent from September 2011. Buyers are plentiful and homes for sale scarce, leading to bidding wars for resale homes.

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Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Associated Press

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Obama heads to Phoenix to pitch mortgage reform